This invention relates to an information processing system and, particularly, to an information processing system which enables a terminal unit incorporating an IC card reader to add operational functions afterward depending on the user-dependent specifications.
IC cards have been used in a variety of financial firm's cards and membership cards, and are now going to be used as credit cards for various commodity transactions and ticket buying cards for public transportations. IC cards are used in extensive fields, and each kind of IC card has a distinct content of data and manner of processing depending on each issuing company. On this account, processing programs are prepared separately for terminal units or host computers (they are called generically "terminal units" hereinafter) which deal with specific IC cards.
There have been proposed IC cards oriented to "down-load processing" in which processing programs corresponding to a terminal unit for a specific business, such as banks, is written afterward on the IC card. Terminal units which accept IC cards are designed to process data in correspondence to each type of IC card.
IC cards are used increasingly in a variety of content, and therefore it is extremely inefficient to provide terminal units specifically in compliance with individual specifications. Their hardware structures are almost same or similar to one another, and individual specifications are mainly attained on a software basis. Development of software to meet individual specifications of terminal units results in a higher manufacturing cost and longer delivery time.